Zoroastrianism : A Better Form Of Religious Philosophy

By Dr. Samuel Adjei Sarfo

When people read the Bible, they fail to acknowledge the dynamism of religion and its clear evolution from sacrifice and rituals to the emphasis on conduct and character. To these, the Bible is a direct revelation from God and its content sacrosanct. However, the book evolved with civilization, responding to cultural growth as it occurred among humankind. The religious practices of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac and Moses are entirely different from what Jesus taught. The patriarchs did not look to heaven and hell as the reward of being either good or bad. They considered earthly prosperity as the reward of their efforts to please god, and their view of misfortune was that it was the result of their disobedience.

How did this religion suddenly evolve into the concept of love and responsibility? It was due to the Jewish contact with Zoroatrianism. Zoroastrianism was founded by the Prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra). He lived around 1700 and 1200 before the birth of Christ. He was born into a Bronze Age culture with a polytheistic religion, which included animal sacrifice. Zoroaster rejected the religion of the Bronze Age Iranians, with their many gods and oppressive class structure, in which the princes and priests controlled the ordinary people. He also opposed animal sacrifices.

Zoroaster believed in one creator God, teaching that only one God was worthy of worship. Other gods were workers of Angra Mainyu, God's adversary. In Zoroastrianism, Ahura Mazda is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything that can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth. In the Gathas, the most sacred texts of Zoroastrianism thought to have been composed by Zoroaster himself, the prophet acknowledged devotion to no other divinity besides Ahura Mazda .

Throughout the Gathas, Zoroaster emphasizes deeds and actions, and accordingly asceticism is frowned upon in Zoroastrianism. In Zoroastrianism, this was explained as fleeing from the experiences of life, which was the very purpose that the urvan (most commonly translated as the "soul") was sent into the mortal world to collect. The avoidance of any aspect of life is a shirking of the responsibility and duty to oneself, one's soul, and one's family and social obligations.

Central to Zoroastrianism is the emphasis on moral choice, to choose the responsibility and duty for which one is in the mortal world, or to give up this duty and so facilitate the work of Angra Mainyu . Similarly, predestination is rejected in Zoroastrian teaching. Humans bear responsibility for all situations they are in, and in the way they act toward one another. Reward, punishment, happiness, and grief all depend on how individuals live their lives.

In Zoroastrianism, good transpires for those who do righteous deeds. Those who do evil have themselves to blame for their ruin. Zoroastrian morality is then to be summed up in the simple phrase, "good thoughts, good words, good deeds" (Humata, Hukhta, Hvarshta in Avestan), for it is through these that asha (positive energy) is maintained and druj (negative energy) is kept in check.

An understanding of Zoroastrianism, a religion that existed over a thousand years before Jesus Christ, helps to explain five things:

1. That the radical transformation from the old testament religion and the new testament one arose out of contacts with more civilized forms of religion.

2. That long before Christianity, the teachings of Jesus existed elsewhere, and was tapped and refined into a new teaching to countermand that which was practiced by the Jews.

3. That the teachings of Zoroaster permeates all religions, and stand out as the mother of all the forms.

4. That one can practice the teachings of Zoroaster alone and satisfy all the requirements of one’s creator, living a happy, satisfying life right here on earth.

5. That at its irreducible form, the greatest religious faith is about who we are and what we do for others, not what we do in church.

The more taxing religion is that which was offered by Zoroaster and echoed by all the prophets. That religion unitizes all the good teachings of the prophets and fosters those acts and thoughts that make the world a better place for all humankind.

Samuel Adjei Sarfo, Doctor of Law, is a General Legal Practitioner resident in Austin, Texas. You can email him at sarfoadjei @yahoo.com